Stinkers, losers and lamentable flops, Hollywood had them all in 2015. With tongue firmly in cheek, I have to say that the moguls must make the bad ones to remind us just how good the great ones such as Spotlight and The Force Awakens really are.

My list covers only those failed flicks that I was obliged to see during the year. I managed to miss turkey-time titles such as Mortdecai, Get Hard, The Road Within, Taken 3, Vacation and Woody Allen’s existential idiocy, Irrational Man. All these showed up on somebody’s list of the Worst Ten Films of 2015.

I escaped them all, only to run into the 10 titles below. Some are not truly horrible or totally incompetent in the technical sense. But these are the ones that count as bitter disappointments. That group includes my number one for the worst of the year, Fantastic Four.

WORST FILMS OF 2015:

1 — FANTASTIC FOUR, directed by Josh Trank, starring Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell: With its hopelessly muddled plot, this dark and dismal origins story missed the point of the Marvel comic books that birthed the characters in 1961. Even Trank dissed his own flick before its release, complaining about interference in the editing room. But the movie was Doctor Doomed from the start of production and Trank’s career is stalled, with his stand-alone Star Wars movie taken away in favour of another director. Meanwhile, FF sequels are seriously in doubt.

2 — FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, starring Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson: Taylor-Johnson’s rendering of the trashy pulp novel removed most of the transgressive sex and turned the whole affair into one shade — a gigantic grey bore. The two stars reportedly dislike one another but the movie generated $570 million worldwide and the Darker and Freed sequels are scheduled for February of 2017 and 2018.

3 — PAUL BLART: MALL COP 2, directed by Andy Fickman, starring Kevin James: The original movie was not that funny but it made decent money ($183 million worldwide on a modest $26 million production budget). So this sequel was sadly inevitable. But it is also awful.

4 — JURASSIC WORLD, director Colin Trevorrow, starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard and a ravenous pack of digitally created dinosaurs: While Trevorrow’s reboot of Steven Spielberg’s fantasy franchise made a staggering amount of money ($1.669 billion worldwide) it disappointed me. Pratt was misused, stripped of his cheeky humour. What was left was loud, long and bombastic. But millions loved the thrills and scares.

5 — LOVE THE COOPERS, directed by Jessie Nelson, starring Alan Arkin, Diane Keaton, John Goodman and Amanda Seyfried: Personally, I hate the Coopers. This dysfunctional family flick is set at Christmas and has only one pairing that is even remotely interesting — old man Arkin befriends and mentors a young waitress played by Seyfried.

6 — PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION, directed by Gregory Plotkin, starring Ivy George: Enough already! And this sixth in the PA franchise is supposed to be the last! All of the Paranormal movies are dreadfully dull and surprisingly inactive, this spin-off among them.

7 — UNFRIENDED, directed by Leo Gabriadze, starring Shelley Hennig: This found-footage, youth-oriented horror flick has its multitude of fans. But I am not among them and found the whole enterprise as tedious as the Blair Witch sequel. Meanwhile, Unfriended is also getting sequelized, with the second one expected later in 2016.

8 — STRANGE MAGIC, directed by Gary Rydstrom, starring the voice actors Alan Cumming as Bog King and Evan Rachel Wood as fairy princess Marianne: This ridiculous animation stands out because it is Star Wars creator George Lucas’ vanity project. He dreamed of making it for 15 years but it looks cobbled together in 15 minutes.

9 — THE LAST WITCH HUNTER, directed by Breck Eisner, starring Vin Diesel: As the determined Diesel furiously kills witches, he bleeds out any respect he generated with the action classic Furious 7 earlier in the year.

10 — SISTERS, directed by Jason Moore, starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler: Friends in life and both Saturday Night Live graduates, Fey and Poehler play loving, squabbling and decidedly different sisters who get together for one last party at their childhood home. Chaos ensues but too few laughs and a lot of insufferable nonsense.

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